Behind the scenes: National Day parades

• Source: Global Times
• [17:52 September 24 2009]
• Comments

Regardless of the intense daily training, low pay and promise of sunburns, thousands of students tried out for a chance to root for the republic.

Guli Weier, a junior at the MUC School of Journalism and Communication, is one of more than 30 Uygur performers in the parade. She hasn't been back home to Xinjiang the whole summer, devoting all her time to rehearsals.

"My parents really miss me and call me a lot, reminding me to rest, eat and practice well," she said.

But Guli says she is most touched by the student posts of their experiences on their university's online forum, which are then sent out to other students via text message.

"The stories encourage me to keep going," she said.

Despite the long drilling hours and scorching summer sun, one performer surnamed Feng of the Yao minority (a southern Chinese ethnic group of 2.13 million) is still cool enough to find the humor in it all.

"Armed police held a duck-walk race for us during our physical training exercises. You can imagine how funny it was having a 1,000 people running around in a duck squat," said Feng.

The rehearsal also brought back fond memories for former participants of National Daypast, beaming with nostalgia from the crowd.

A professor surnamed Suo with the MUC Computer Science Department told of her experiences participating in the parades celebrating the 45th anniversary.

"Ours 15 years ago was smaller. We didn't have any ethnic minority costumes. Most of us were wearing white T-shirts and street clothes," she said.

Thirty national minorities are represented among participants, each wearing their colorful national costumes costing around 2,000 yuan ($293) provided by the government, according to Xu.

Liu Lu, a Hui minority and senior at Beijing University of Agriculture which is near MUC, also came to watch and reminisce about his parading days.

"I had the honor to participate in the 50th anniversary parades 10 years ago, when I was still a sixth grader," Liu said.

Back in 1999, thousands of other middle school students in Beijing like Liu performed at Tian'anmen Square for an entire morning on National Day, practicing four hours a day for almost half a year.

"I wish I could be one of them again, because you never feel the same excitement unless you're right in the middle of it," said Liu.